Tier 3
music / / poetry / / philosophy / / -ology by Nick CourtrightElegy for the Builder’s Wife
This is a chapbook. It is out with Blue Hour Press.
Read it here for free.
Hot Off the Press: Archives of an Overworked Music Critic
As most of you know, I do this little music journalism thing on the side because I have so much spare time I don’t even know what to do with myself. In addition to doing regular concert previews and reviews for Austinist, and writing feature interviews for Soundcheck Magazine, for the last four months I’ve been running a weekly album review column for Transmission Entertainment called Hot Off the Press, which discusses in sometimes-professional, sometimes-notsomuch manner incredibly new albums—about half the time the albums are reviewed before they are released to the public, a luxury I have due to a combination of media hook-ups and blatant theft of unpublicized leaks.
The result of this is that I’m often way ahead of the game on albums, thus providing some of the initial “hype” or “bust” sentiment stewing around the internet, and that I am often reviewing albums before I really have a damn clue what I’m talking about—there are a couple rethinkers (I should have given You & Me more time, and the early weeks of HOTP are pretty thin), but for the most part I think I got it right the first go’round. So, without further ado, here is a considerable list of links (click the red to be magically transported to the full review), in reverse chronological order:
Women (Women): “…there is a very thick haze of early Animal Collective-ness populating this album, as you can almost see the two groups together—long before AC’s electro-obsession took full hold—bounding around a campfire in loincloths, shaking tambourines and scaring children…” Report Card: B+
Pit Er Pat (High Time): “…the big problem here is that while 2006’s Pyramids seemed like an album maybe ahead of its time, High Time, an almost uncomfortably ironic title, feels like an album that’s hit the shelves a good five years too late…” Report Card: C
15: Crystal Stilts & Times New Viking
Crystal Stilts (Alight of Night): “…it’s as if the woe woe woe of Crystal Stilts’ approach is so draped in mascara tears that fans have no choice but to bob their heads in utter happiness that they found something so compulsively hip-shaking and degenerate…” Report Card: B+
Times New Viking (Stay Awake EP): “…it’s difficult to figure if what Times New Viking is doing makes any sense—after all, it’s impossible not to wonder whether they would be “better” if they stopped recording on such shitty equipment…” Report Card: B
Deerhoof (Offend Maggie): “…despite oft-indiscernible lyrics, the obscurity of their songs, and a distinct lack of sex appeal, Deerhoof has successfully built an adoring fan base, and these realities make it all the more mystifying and disappointing that Offend Maggie lacks the spikes in extreme glee that their last couple albums have provided so willingly…” Report Card: B
Megapuss (Surfing): “…in many ways, Devendra Banhart and Greg Rogove’s album is juvenile, senseless, random, filthy, awkward, head-scratching, and sometimes just plain stupid. And yet, despite all of these fitting adjectives, Surfing works…” Report Card: B+
13: Juana Molina & Final Fantasy
Juana Molina (Un Día): “…through its sheer bombast and ambition, Un Día is bound to find a wider and more enthusiastic American audience than her previous efforts—songs such as the title track and “Los Hongos de Marosa” are so stunning it’d be a shame if American audiences didn’t catch on…” Report Card: A-
Final Fantasy (Plays to Please EP & Spectrum, 14th Century EP): “…frontman Owen Pallett is one of those wildly bright and frustratingly eccentric types, and these two EPs expand upon the already iconoclastic canon he has constructed, as he uses additional manpower to back his stunning string arrangements with the familiar-but-300-years-old sounds of chamber music…” Report Card: B
12: TV on the Radio & Cold War Kids
TV on the Radio (Dear Science): “…the melodrama in TV on the Radio’s music regularly foams over the surface, and although the hugeness of their approach may turn some fickle listeners off at first blush, repeated listens will draw in even the most skeptical fans of singer-songwriters and sparse arrangement…” Report Card: A
Cold War Kids (Loyalty to Loyalty): “…Cold War Kids are so divisive even your grandparents argue over whether they are the shining light of new soul rock come down from above to lead us all into a new era of heartfelt tunesmanship, or whether they are a bunch of underschooled and self-absorbed fools with an editing deficiency who are example 1A of blog bands gone painfully awry…” Report Card: B-
11:Peter Bjorn and John & Grouper
Peter Bjorn and John (Inland Empire): “…Seaside Rock is a testament to a band who’s willing to say a little bit of ‘fuck you’ to the slavering masses, a testament that declares that musical integrity and continued exploration are more important to this band than a continued assault on the tender eardrums of the thoughtless youth. Either that or they’re running away, like pansies, from expectations…” Report Card: B
Grouper (Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill): “…if it weren’t for the fact that Grouper makes her music almost impossible to hear on purpose, you’d really want to suggest that she find a better producer, or at least stop strumming the guitar seventy feet underwater…” Report Card: B-
10: Department of Eagles & Fight Bite
Department of Eagles (In Ear Park): “…while the ups can be pretty spectacular, In Ear Park is ultimately done in by its questionable revision—one almost gets the feeling that Rossen and Nicolaus felt rushed to get this out while the hype is high…” Report Card: B-
Fight Bite (Emerald Eyes): “…while the band name Fight Bite may conjure up images of Mike Tyson, crazed look in his eyes, with a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear in his mouth, this music couldn’t be further from that image. If anything, the image that’s brought up is one of Tyson and Holyfield walking through a garden of daisies, perhaps holding hands…” Report Card: A-
Of Montreal (Skeletal Lamping): “…and only then did it become easier to accept the possibility that [Kevin Barnes had] not lost himself completely in a bizarre world of cocks, asses, and transgender dance parties wildly galloping through the thesaurus…” Report Card: B+
8: The Bug & Kemialliset Ystävät
The Bug (London Zoo): “…while the scowl this album wears makes much hardcore rap look like child’s play, the album’s polarizing effects are a sign of its ingenuity—Martin’s sensibilities regarding darkness and repetition make it the perfect collection of anthems for sneering and cursing as you cut off other drivers on the highway…” Report Card: A
Kemialliset Ystävät (Harmaa Laguuni): “…this particular collection of sounds is a little less shocking to the ears than their prior studio work; that’s not to say, though, that it won’t elicit plenty of ‘what the hell are you listening to’ comments from passersby, because it certainly will…” Report Card: B-
7: Vivian Girls & The Music Tapes
Vivian Girls (Vivian Girls): “…Vivian Girls’ clattering, energetic approach to punky two minute pop-rock is befitting of the web’s fawning, and surely soon enough the Brooklyn trio (all women, no less) will be the darlings of a wider populus…even if the album as a whole doesn’t thrill as fabulously as the first couple singles would have you believe…” Report Card: B
The Music Tapes (Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes): “…what good possibly could come from Koster’s collection, being that he is notoriously obsessed with the singing saw, of all random instruments, that he personally has never released a truly proper LP, and that he’s been working on this album for nine freaking years?…” Report Card: B
Lackthereof (Your Anchor): “…notable because they are the primary project of Menomena member Danny Seim, Lackthereof makes music that sounds like a Menomena song lying prone on the studio room floor, like an engine taken totally apart and put only a little bit back together…” Report Card: B-
Conor Oberst (Conor Oberst): “…as his growing pains have presented themselves to the listening public, that incredible urgency has gone missing in his work, and to some critics he’s been relegated to has-been status—a time capsule at the ripe old age of twenty-eight…” Report Card: C-
5: Bodies of Water & Russian Red
Bodies of Water (A Certain Feeling): “…rarely has an album truly jumped out and demanded to follow in the bombastic footsteps of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne’s Canadian outfit, while still being talented and unique enough not merely to seem like parrots. But A Certain Feeling has that quality to it…” Report Card: A
Russian Red (I Love Your Glasses): “…words of wisdom for the listener are twofold: #1 if you listen to this album, start with track two so you don’t get your hopes too high, and #2 Hernández is only twenty-two years old, so she still has plenty of time to be the world-conqueror I’d hoped her already to be…” Report Card: B
The Walkmen (You & Me): “…the band, as usual, is pretty tight and on cue, and this album sees them expanding their oft-old-timey sound a bit, but, as usual, they rarely make the listener reflect with amazement on the awesomeness of their instrumental achievements…” Report Card: B-
Grizzly Bear (Two Weeks’ television debut): “…Two Weeks, a sparkling if simple track, is cloaked in reverb and is guaranteed to sound better on the fifth listen than it did on the first…” Report Card: A
Au (Verbs): “…some of it sounds like little more than a bunch of people tuning their instruments or screwing off pre-rehearsal, but when the noises this flock of musicians creates come together into a song, the results can be pretty damn pleasing…” Report Card: B
Pyramids (Pyramids): “…although Pyramids aren’t likely to find themselves on the cover of Spin magazine anytime soon (hell, they hardly turn up on a Google search), they have potential, and with a broadening of their sound they should start to make themselves the first ‘Pyramids’ band you think of, rather than the fourth…” Report Card: C+
White Denim (Workout Holiday): “…this garage-y business gets down to the brass tacks of dirty rock, with sloppy and simple construction and frequent breakdowns, and it’s not unlikely that your first listen will seem a bit pale for all the praise. But when it comes down to it, this is some very, very good stuff, and once it gets its energetic claws into you, you’ll have a hard time taking it off the iPod…” Report Card: A-
Black Kids (Partie Traumatic): “…While this is an album with lovely songs for a club rotation, for any other of the myriad purposes for listening to music—such as passing the time while driving on I-35 during rush hour—chances are that the absolute lack of irony will wear thin quite quickly…” Report Card: C
1: Beck & The Fiery Furnaces & Ponytail
Beck (Modern Guilt): “…despite the skepticism—fueled by his diminishing live performance as he nears forty—sure enough, like most all Beck releases, Modern Guilt gets its claws into you, and after a tepid first few listens, it starts to hold together quite well as a collection…” Report Card: B
The Fiery Furnaces (Remember): “…put very simply: if you’re not already a fan of Fiery Furnaces, this release will just solidify your disgust for them. But if you’re already a fan of Fiery Furnaces, you’ll probably just wish they would’ve found some not-so-shitty recording equipment for this ambitious project…” Report Card: C
Ponytail (Ice Cream Spiritual): “…despite the occasionally awesome interplay between these ‘instruments,’ this is an album that’s going to be hard-pressed to survive multiple spins in a row without becoming a burden on sensitive ears…” Report Card: B-
Because I Can’t Not Comment: The Issue 1 Controversy
A few fine links regarding the ridiculous search engine exploding Issue 1, a “poetic” experiment gone terribly, terribly right:
- That notorious crab-ass and postmodern proliferator, Ron Silliman, on the issue. Somewhat surprising he wouldn’t laud the experiment, isn’t it?
- How it became so viciously viral, while also commenting on the closet narcissism of poets. Surely, there’s an element of the embarrassing here; i.e. if you didn’t have Google Alerts before, you do now.
- K. Silem Mohammed ironically noting the three possible irritable responses to Issue 1.
- Even the Poetry Foundation has contributed to the uproar, which is surprising considering they usually keep some distance from such tawdry affairs.
- Not soon enough, here’s some clarification by the project’s true “authors,” who surely had no idea the extent of the pleasant mess they made.
- And, here, for those of you who absolutely, positively, despise this sort of stuff.
Lastly, for no reason whatsoever, here’s “my” poem as it appeared on page 206:
Writing decrees like creation
The things show the uncomfortable
…….. matters of splay matters about its
……………… grief
With most hooked salvation they post
…….. redemption and eider
Are they robust?
They are warm
Out here there
…….. are hills
Timid as a decree, bold as
…….. a victory
They spring in malice
They have no remorse
That morning is theirs, pillows,
…….. sizes, souls, the fearing letters
Thing wishes in their ardent affair
They are too
…….. wild-eyed; the simultaneous mist sends their
……………… dust
The Nature of Publication: Misreading Bidart
Yesterday I was revisiting Frank Bidart’s newest book, Watching the Spring Festival, and I came across these lines that, though he almost certainly didn’t have our discussion of submission in mind, strike me as relevant:
By exorcism / you survived. By submission, then making.
They are from the poem “Old Man at the Wheel,” and I think, if you badly interpret his assumed intentions, you could make an argument that submission always comes before making, and thus, the whole of the argument is unnecessary, because, after all, you submitted yourself before you even wrote a word. But of course, that’s a mangling, and though quite possibly true (at a level), it’s also a bit unpleasant to carry with you through the day.
The Nature of Publication: The Morals of Submission
Note: Many of you have read my post “The Nature of Publication: Poetry in Literary Journals,” but I wanted to change gears a bit here and offer some thoughts on the act of submission itself, and whether it’s really the “right” thing to do.
A chronic moral issue I’ve debated regularly since my early days in an MFA program is whether it inherently compromises artistic integrity to proffer yourself at the feet of literary journals. There’s no doubt that to engage in the act of submission is to engage in not only a certain tedium—research a journal, develop and specialize your cover letter, conscientiously select poems that may be of interest to that journal, print those poems, label and stamp envelopes, fold SASE, fold poems and cover letter, insert in envelope, et cetera, et cetera—but also to contend with the troubling notion that the legitimacy or profitability of your blood, sweat, and tears is somehow contingent on the acceptance of others. While an argument can be made that it is just fine and dandy, as well as wise, to seek the adoration of the literary community, I haven’t been able to shake the nagging feeling that a steroided Salingerian or Dickinsonesque policy of non-sharing would ultimately result in a heightened karmic reward. But has this nagging feeling led me to discontinue the religious act of submitting? Of course not.
As someone who’s worked for literary journals, and has worked to get into them, I respect the symbiotic relationship between the two; still, I have to laugh at myself when people ask how my poems get into journals, as I always slip and use some form of the word “submit.” After all, to many people “submission” implies a sort of prostration, and it’s at least a little embarrassing to embrace that branding of the journal/writer relationship. The justification for that relationship arrangement is plain-as-day: the literary journal is a respected medium for the advancement of a writer’s career, not to mention ego, while the journal has the benefit of the needy multitudes on its side, even if those multitudes don’t often enough fill out a subscription card. All these matters of definition and clarification aside, a particular struggle arrives for the writer who so disdains the notion of self-promotion that it keeps her up at night, only she knows that in regards to eventual tenure (especially without a doctoral degree), the path of least resistance is to get as published as possible, and to do so as quickly as possible.
Writing, unfortunately, is a bear which wears on its foot the steel trap of narcissism. It seems there is little way around this, regardless of whether you claim to write for the good of yourself, for the good of the world, or for any other purpose—after all, the solitary exercise of writing is a workout, and its results are only to the untrained eye less visible than time spent in the gym. Too often the humanity of composition is forgotten, as when the act of writing or of being a writer is seen as some sort of angelic feat, and not the product of diligently sitting still.
Personally, I write because I love writing, and I can’t imagine not writing. But beyond the act of creation, how have I gotten around that little, unpleasant feeling in my gut when I submit to literary journals, that feeling that I’m in some way doing something wrong or selfish or less admirable than waiting until death for heaps of my compositions to be “discovered”? After struggling with this question for years, and suffering the occasional bout of compromise, I think I’ve come to at least a partial conclusion: firstly, to compose a poem or story with the intention of getting it into a journal is an ugly endeavor, and should be avoided—in other words, I’d offer that as long as the “submission” occurs after creation, and not before, it’s all good. Secondly—and perhaps just as importantly—it’s a good habit never, ever to submit to a journal you don’t read, respect, appreciate, and would be truly honored to have accept your work.
What do you think? Does submission take the pure joy out of your creation? Is it foolish to write and expect appreciation without submitting to journals? Is there any way to avoid narcissism when engaging in a creative act? And, here’s a big one: is posthumous glory more worthwhile than earthly recognition?
Band Interview: Caribou
Caribou is the brainchild of Dan Snaith, a man who grew up in Ontario and got his PhD in mathematics in England (check out a PDF of his impressive and practically unpronounceable thesis here), all the while developing his own brand of retro-influenced electronic pop. His mode the last few years has turned more and more towards what the layman would call “songs,” and the change has resulted in some of the best music of the last half-decade. In an effort to further understand how a man gets his PhD and then tours the world supporting electronic pop music, we had ourselves a little chat with Dan, who proved to be just as smart as he sounds.
One thing I absolutely had to know about regards your PhD—I saw that you specialized in Algebraic number theory, and I found your thesis online, and…Overconvergent Siegler modular symbols? Sounds pretty intense. I was wondering if you could tell me about that?
Well, I can, but it’s not something I can explain, really. It’s not something that’s applied—which is kind of why I like it—it’s completely abstract. It’s not applicable to anything in the real world. None of those words make any sense because, without, you know, taking a course and learning a few definitions and thinking about math and learning more about it—it’s real cumulative and it’s something that’s impossible to explain in any two sentences that make sense.
Yeah, I was looking through your thesis desperately seeking even two sentences that a non-mathematician could say aloud.
It’s like it’s this whole separate world that’s fully inaccessible. And I think somehow that that’s what I like about it.
Something that’s purely theoretical?
Exactly. In some ways it’s really self-indulgent. It’s just for the fun of doing it and for the challenge of working on it.
But I think it’s good that people still do things not just because it’ll get them a job, but they do these things because they enjoy them.
You’ve said in the past that your music is not mathematics, but aesthetics. But even with that in mind, how do you think your mathematical background has influenced your music?
I don’t think it influences my music directly, but the things I like about mathematics and music are the same things. They’re both kind of creative and they’re both kind of individual pursuits. But although I enjoy the same things about both of them, I don’t think there’s any way in which the mathematics affects the music. As far I can see anyway.
If math and music are two separate worlds wholly, how do you think you would describe your aesthetic taste?
It’s really hard to say. I guess I would say that I have a tendency to like things that are kind of layered or more messy sounding or maximal sounding rather than spare minimal music, music that’s more based on space. I tend to like music that’s full of lots of things going on that create a big world of sound or whatever—lots of different surprises and interesting sounds interacting that are based on simple elements. But yeah, it’s hard to say. And even that stuff’s not entirely true.
I think there are so many things to like about music and so many different reasons to get excited about making music, and that’s the reason I’ll never get bored doing this. Each time I can think about something different when I’m making the record or when I hear new music, and it can surprise me. It never gets boring because there are so many different elements that are exciting.
Album Review: Forces by Silver Pines
Silver Pines have one big thing going for them. And, no, it’s not that their band is based in the lonesome burg of San Marcos, Texas, which at more than a half-hour away is always looking up at Austin with the starry eyes of the semi-isolated college town. That one big thing Silver Pines have going for them is that their haunting, forever-reverberating songs are often pretty exceptional, and everyone who’s heard them seems to agree that something special is going on down I-35. Last year’s Fort Walnut EP served as an excellent introduction to the band, but this year’s Forces EP broadens their sound without compromising what made their earliest work so satisfying. Using all the best of country music—slide and even a singing saw make appearances—without falling prone to the genre’s more troubling cheesy aspects, the stage-taking septet crafts only the most gentle of tunes, and that sincere gentleness remains true even when the full strength of the band is involved.
The linchpin here is lead singer Stefanie Franciotti, whose calming presence both on the album and on stage allows the rest of the band to do its finest work. Her voice is forever distant, not unlike that of a long lost lover, or of other newly-revered vocalists such as Beach House’s Victoria Legrand or Fight Bite’s Leanne Macomber, and its pleading pain or burgeoning enthusiasm acts as the band’s most captivating asset. But that’s not to discredit the rest of the band, which holds Forces together admirably with steady rhythms and the occasional dose of flash, such as the guitar freakout at the four-minute mark of the EP’s first track, “Timefather,” the rollicking conclusion of mid-disc standout, “Payasito,” and the blistering second half of the album’s most vicious track, “Fortress of Daughters.”
It’s difficult to see the career arc of a band who has yet to truly give the big city a spin, and college-based bands have a tendency to evaporate not long past graduation, but Silver Pines—if they so desire to continue unabated—have prepped themselves for significantly wider appreciation in the indie realm, especially as other country-influenced acts such as Fleet Foxes gain seemingly unstoppable momentum. And the Forces EP, clocking in at an economical twenty-eight minutes, is an undeniably solid step forward.
Band Interview: Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent
This interview originally appeared on the Austinist on March 11, 2008.
Phosphorescent, the woodsy and brutally honest project of Brooklyn-by-way-of-Athens-and-Alabama musician Matthew Houck, used the strength of last year’s Pride to firmly establish itself as an act to be reckoned with. Combining haunting natural effects and skillful understatement, the album presents an intentionally rough-around-the-edges sound that has drawn complimentary comparisons to everyone from Dylan to Oldham. In advance of Phosphorescent’s three SXSW shows, including the Austinist/Gothamist get together on Wednesday, Matthew Houck spoke to us while snowed-in in New York.
So people listen to your music, and they get this idea that you’re some somber mystic, wandering through the forest in a pit of despair.
(laughs) Yeah, I see that.
How does that image compare to who you actually are as a person?
Well, I think music is one thing and life is another. To a certain degree I don’t really care all that much about what picture people might have of me as a person based on my music. They’d have to be kind of idiots to think that, really. No one really thinks you’re a certain way because of a song you sing, but then I might be way wrong about that. Maybe they do think that, and if they do there’s really, you know, I can’t spend too much time worrying about that.
You don’t really see your music as being necessarily your “heart,” but rather a separate product?
It’s not really separate, it’s just a specific part of it. It’s not a whole picture. It’s just a narrow little slice, of what you happened to write down that day, or you happened to sing. It’s not a full picture, and that’s fine. It’s not supposed to be a full picture. If every song you wrote was for the purpose of representing yourself as a complete human being, to the world, the song would be, I hope, more than three or four minutes long.
Band Interview: Doug Martsch of Built to Spill
This interview appeared on the Austinist on February 29, 2008.
Alright, so Built to Spill is one of the greatest, most influential, and most acclaimed bands of the past fifteen years. There’s really no way around it. And for those of you who are a little late to the love-in, here’s a very small sample of some of the things that have been said about them:
“A band whose talent and proficiency at times seem[s] boundless.” –Pitchfork Media
“Flawless.” –Trigger Magazine
“In short, he’s a talent more people ought to know about.” –Rolling Stone, on Doug Martsch
“Better than getting laid, finding God and winning the lotto combined.” –San Francisco Weekly, just last week when discussing their live performance
So when a band like this comes to Stubb’s, as they do on March 2nd (along with famed Nirvana influences Meat Puppets, as well as Helvetia) you should pay attention. And that’s exactly what we did, to the point that we arranged a conversation with BTS frontman and fearless mastermind, Doug Martsch, a man whose honesty and candor proved as engaging as his music.
Back when Built to Spill first started coming out with albums, getting “big” in quotation marks, the music industry was a lot different, built around radio conglomerates, big time record labels, and word of mouth, but now everything’s downloading and blogging and MySpace. As someone who’s seen both sides of the shift, what do you think of the way the music industry is now compared to how it used to be?
I’ve never paid too much attention to it, but I think it’s cool that people can share music. But to me, these record companies? I don’t feel bad for them at all. They argue that the artists are going to suffer and stuff but I think they’re full of shit. I think they’re just worried about themselves. I don’t think they care about the artists. And the artists will do fine, there are ways to sell your music, and big deal if you don’t sell your music? Who cares if the artists don’t have mansions and shit, you know? Why shouldn’t the artists just make music in their free time and just have regular jobs like anyone else? If you wanna make music you can go tour—there’s no way that they can get into your show for free. These record companies just dominated for so long they’re just scrambling, and I don’t feel bad for them at all.
It was the establishment and now they realize they’re not necessary anymore, so they’re trying to stop it at all costs.
Yeah, and they abused their position. They totally milked people, they milked the public. They charged people way more than they ever needed to for records. You can’t feel bad for them.
Band Interview: Yoni Wolf of WHY?
This interviewed originally appeared on the Austinist on March 7, 2008.
Lurking in the near, near future is the album Alopecia, the strange, provocative, and incredibly engaging new album from Why?, a Bay Area band that seems to be ticketed for a whole new bunch of notoriety, right quick. While Why? in the past has often incited listeners to, well, invoke the name of the band–mostly because of scattershot verbosity and music that seemed more pieced-together than refined–they’ve pulled all their unbridled talent together into a cohesive and coherent, not to mention very good, whole. And, seeming as they’re going to be tromping all about Austin’s stomping grounds next week for SXSW, we sent out some questions to lead figure and wordsmith Yoni Wolf. You know, just to see what he’s all about.
Alopecia! Your most accessible and genre-confounding record yet, it seems like Why? is poised for a much wider audience. What, to you, makes this album different or more broadly accessible than your earlier work?
Well, I think we got our shit together a bit more this time in most every aspect of process: songwriting, arrangements, pre production, recording, mixing, mastering–the whole shebang. I think we were just somewhat more prepared every step of the way because we’ve been through it all a couple of times now.
You grew up in Cincinnati, but didn’t really find your crowd musically until you moved to San Francisco. Looking back as an adult, what about your Cincinnati experience made you the musician you are today?
I think everything I am today is based on my upbringing somehow, be it Cincinnati, Messianic Judaism, my high school friends, my siblings, my parents…
Okay, here’s academic question #1. In “Song of the Sad Assassin,” you start off by saying “we lifted the body from the water like a gown,” which is a really kick-ass metaphor. How do metaphor and image work for you in your music?
I use metaphors and images like they are gonna go out of style any minute: with frequency and in great abundance. I can’t get enough. Metaphors and images are really great tools.
Album Review: Women as Lovers by Xiu Xiu
Xiu Xiu are what many would call a success story. After all, they’ve evolved from an experimental, rotating-cast freakshow who appealed only to the outer edge of musical snobs and depressed hipsters, to a full-on, 
four member, MySpace friendly, blog-writing, book- producing, ceaselessly collaborating, networking whirlwind with legions of fans and the respect of critics. Not only that, but unlike some rise-to-glory stories, Xiu Xiu’s transformation has been nice to see, mostly because founding member Jamie Stewart and able sidekick Caralee McElroy always seemed to be having a lot of fun, connecting well with their fans and managing to maintain their sense of humor and their honesty.
But somewhere along the path to Women as Lovers, Xiu Xiu lost a little bit of their subtlety. Though all the band’s hallmarks—the experimentation, the grab-bag electronics and waves of unconventional percussion, the impassioned vocals complete with über-weirdo lyrics—are still there, something vital is missing. Could it be that fame, success, and comfort corrupted Xiu Xiu’s artistic process? That doesn’t seem to fit the still-odd Stewart and McElroy. But what about those two new permanent band members—could they have caused an unnecessary bloating of the music, as if the band weren’t quite ready to absorb all the new hands in the studio? Quite possibly. Regardless of cause, one of the most endearing aspects of Xiu Xiu—their utter vulnerability—has been replaced with a steady confidence.
This is not to say that Women as Lovers is a bad album. It is actually quite fine, as it has enough strangeness to appeal to those who appreciate strangeness, and enough adorableness to appeal to those who appreciate adorableness. Lead track “I Do What I Want When I Want,” complete with shared vocals, a near-perfect progression, no shortage of surprise, and Ornette Coleman-style saxophone, is a fantastic art-pop song. “No Friend Oh!,” whose title hearkens back to earlier albums, is a joy and experience to hear, a song with just enough head-shaking moments to feel like true-to-life Xiu Xiu. “Black Keyboard,” despite its disturbing lyrics, and “You Are Pregnant You, You Are Dead” are also excellent additions to the band’s catalog.
With all that strength, it’s hard to see what doesn’t feel right about this album. But something definitely isn’t quite right, and there’s a good chance the problem lies with the cover song blaring from the album’s center. “Under Pressure,” the David Bowie standard whose beat was made doubly famous by Vanilla Ice, makes for a well-done and interesting cover, all the way down to the exceptional vocal turn by Angels of Light and ex-Swans frontman Michael Gira. But what happens is that Women as Lovers feels less like a complete album and more like a collection of songs. Other moments in the album, including the irritating “Puff and Bunny,” in which Stewart repeats the words “hot pepper” a painful number of times, also lead to the disconnected feel of the album. And this effect, especially in comparison to their previous albums, is pretty jarring.
So it seems this is what happens when a band has established itself as being really, really good—they release an album that is only merely good, and people are annoyed. But that’s the price to pay for success—you better not display imperfection, because if you do you’ll be called on it. And so it is with Xiu Xiu, one of the most excellent and fascinating bands of the decade, and one that still holds that trophy. Even if the trophy isn’t quite as shiny as it used to be.
Xiu Xiu [Official] [Label] [MySpace] [Download Site]
Album Review: Alegranza by El Guincho
Okay, before we begin, there are some things we must know about El Guincho. First of all, El Guincho is one man, Pablo Díaz-Reixa, and he named his album after the uninhabited island of Alegranza, which is at the northeastern tip of the Canary Islands, which are—of course this is common knowledge—an autonomous domain of Spain located on the west coast of Africa. Díaz-Reixa is from these Canary Islands, and, via Barcelona, he creates swirling and excitable indie pop using loops and samples and an amalgam of musical influences ranging from Benga (Kenyan traditional music) to Bhangra (Indian folk) to any brand of tropicalia that flies well above the head of our good friend Jimmy Buffett.
All of this crazy backstory, and El Guincho still can’t seem to shake comparisons to Panda Bear—the “Spanish Panda Bear,” he’s been called. The Person Pitch parallels, despite the fact that there remains little coverage in English on El Guincho, have been mentioned so thoroughly by now that it’s practically mandated by law that every review gives a nod to the idea, an idea which to its inventor probably seemed pretty clever. But really, outside of the compositional technique and a layered load of repetition, there really isn’t too much tying these two machine-musicians together. El Guincho is an artist all his own, and discussing his music only in the context of someone else is a disservice, especially when one realizes that Alegranza is one of the most unique and fascinating albums to come out in a long time.
So if this isn’t really like Panda Bear (or Os Mutantes, or Beirut, or any of the other ridiculous comparisons people are throwing out there in an effort to quantify the album), what is it like? Well, there’s certainly an element of the circus here, an unabashed fun and playfulness that’s hard to find on most sample-based electronic releases. And that’s probably the most striking aspect of El Guincho—much like his funny-to-say band name, the music here is decidedly light-hearted. This means that all the dour indie fans whose pockets are full of angst and agony will probably check this disc at the door. But it also offers a much-needed dose of positivity and play that too often is absent from the oft-schizophrenic art-music scene.
Ultimately, songs like “Fata Morgana,” which starts softly and eventually rampages into a colorful steel drum salute, “Antillas,” a meditative study in repetitive excess, and “Buenos Matrimonios Ahi Fuera” which cruises along effortlessly with child vocals, are proof that computer-crafted music doesn’t have to be lifeless. Because although surely El Guincho crafts his loops and distorts his samples in a solitary world of meticulous detail and independent thought, his tunes are made for the streets, the clubs, the plazas, the alleyways. And this fact seems perfect: after all, that empty island he named the album after? Alegranza, derived from the Spanish, means “joy.”
[El Guincho’s MySpace]
[Download Site (album is sold out in Europe, and unreleased in America)]
[His blog (which is in Spanish, and is pretty crazy if you use an online translator)]
The Nature of Publication: Poetry in Literary Journals
This thingy here is mostly me thinking aloud (but not really aloud, now) about the nature of poetry publication in literary journals, and how the tendency to publish “one-off” poems rather than poems that are part of a bigger project, as well as the tendency to publish single poems rather than multiple poems by a single poet, is acting to undermine both poets and the journals who love them. Sure, this notion has arisen because of the my own publishing experiences; after all, continuing is the utterly disturbing trend of poems I consider “substandard” or “not-aligned-with-my-greater-projects” being published, while poems I believe are of greater substance wallow in unpublished nothingness. And although I take the blame for most of these occurrences, I think the aforementioned way journals go about filling their poetry-dedicated pages is not to be underestimated as a cause of the problem.
As for poems that are part of a larger sequence or project, I think the easiest explanation is that because the poems that comprise larger projects are, in fact, part of something larger, they are therefore prone to being less capable of standing alone. Yet I believe a more complicated explanation is that the themes of “project poems” tend to be more complex, or drawn out, or contextually-oriented to the project’s bigger picture, whereas the “one-off poems” are usually simple little ditties with a bite-size idea. They are pop songs.
But it’s frustrating nonetheless, because poets focused on publishing a book are more inclined to write albums than singles. But literary reviews really love their singles, and this is due in large part to their nasty propensity of publishing “poems” rather than “poets,” which results in a journal dedicating, say, fifty pages to poetry that features 46 lyric poems by 42 different poets. It’d be much better, in my opinion, if journals aimed to publish a poetic vision rather than just a lyric they happen to enjoy—this way a reader can recognize a poet’s identity, rather than getting maybe thirty lines and a significant likelihood of forgetting the poet’s name. It’s like getting a mix tape: yeah, you love the variety, but you probably aren’t going to constantly check the tracklist to see who you’re listening to.
So how about this: fifty pages, ten poets. Yes, that means everyone’s cover letter inevitably looks a lot less impressive, but there are several obvious benefits to be had, both for the journal and for the writer. First of all—and this seems funny to even say—the writer might actually give a damn when the journal arrives in the mail. And not because he or she would get to drool over more pages of his or her own work, but because it would be more interesting to see what other poets in the journal have to offer; you’d actually have the opportunity to develop a relationship with a companion poet’s work over the course of several poems. You’d also be pretty safe to assume that the editors were looking for cohesion in the issue, so it would help you reflect more thoroughly on your own work and its place in that particular issue, and the journal’s aesthetic as a whole.
Secondly, the personal relationship between a journal and a poet would be enhanced, because it takes a substantial commitment on both sides to make fifty pages/ten poets happen. It’s a commitment on the part of the journal not only because they are giving up more pages to each poet, but they also are relinquishing the habit of publishing “singles.” It would require a heightened degree of journalistic confidence in a writer’s vision, which would mean that they would be publishing probably at least a couple of a poet’s poems that they are only “iffy” on; but they would do this because those “iffy” poems are part of the vision, and offer the pros and cons of a bigger picture. It would also make an individual poet more likely to support the journal in the future, because publication would be more of an event and less of a “whatever.” As for the poet, the commitment is huge—to give multiple poems to one journal means that those poems are not going to be published elsewhere. It really is putting a lot of eggs in one basket, but the hope is that that basket will actually garner more exposure, because rather than being one easily-skippable page in three different journals, with two of the poems never being accepted for publication, you have five hard-to-ignore pages in one journal.
Of the more than 180 poetry-publishing journals with which I am familiar, no more than ten truly operate in this “poets-rather-than-poems” manner. The most notable of these is probably The Missouri Review, which has a long-standing history of pushing poets to the next level; after all, if you can say that you were published in The Missouri Review, you are saying that you were a featured poet who can offer not only flashes of lyric brilliance, but a consistent strength and unity of vision. But, to be honest, it is difficult to submit to this journal—they ask for 12-20 pages of poetry, and that’s a hell of a lot to put out there, even if they only take five or six pages. And surely, if every journal worked like this, it would be far more difficult to manage simultaneous submissions, as the clerical end of the deal would get to be very challenging. But ultimately, the relationship between journal and poet would be amplified, and the poet would be given more of an opportunity to become stylistically recognizable—especially to the casual journal reader who only has one or maybe two subscriptions (or, more likely, none), rather than forty; and this chance to have breadth revealed must be better than being just another insignificant name on a long list of one-offs.
Album Review: Distortion by The Magnetic Fields
Say you’re drunk. Or, better yet, you just woke up after one of those Mexican Martini nights, so it’s one of those mornings where the sun, you’re sure, is already blazing its blaze just beyond your bedroom window, yet you can only spot a squeak of it through the blinds, and that little bit of light is really all you handle. Anything more would send you into full-on fury, but that special kind of fury where you can’t really do anything, because, truly, you feel like shit.
The Magnetic Fields’ new album, Distortion, seems to have been composed on such a morning. But no, this isn’t a bad thing. If you think about it, some of the purest and most unadulterated moments come when in this most unpleasant of states; after all, reason is out and only absolute animalness and grouchiness and even a bit of self-loathing humor can be had. In music, you could say it’s a place where melodies are simple and indulgently satisfying, while the themes are effortlessly and simultaneously tragic and comic. And Distortion gets right at all of it, right down in its crusty center. True, the entirety of the album is covered in a fog, a thick haze of crunch and—who would’ve guessed it—distortion.
The fact that The Magnetic Fields are legends is and is not beside the point. Their epic 1999 release 69 Love Songs—a triple album magnum opus of range and obsession and theatricality and depression and joy—set the bar pretty high for lead man Stephin Merritt, and he’s struggled a little to get back to that apex. 2004’s i was an all-acoustic affair that felt a little too soft, and besides that we’ve only caught brief glimpses of the band in the twenty-first century, a fact that’s pretty shocking considering the fact that Merritt, with the help of three other occasional lead vocalists, came out with sixty-nine songs in one year. So, to say that Distortion is a return to form wouldn’t be fair, but to say that it’s a very nice album would be.
The album begins with the triumphant and mostly wordless “Three-Way,” a song which in its own conceit stands as a harbinger of the music to come, while tracks such as “Old Fools,” “Please Stop Dancing,” and “Drive On, Driver”—one of several songs ably sung by Shirley Simms—are signature Magnetic Fields songs blanketed in that relentless haze. There are a couple misses here, as “California Girls” (chorus: “I hate California girls”) and “Mr. Mistletoe” are either too over-the-top or too medicated to survive their own confidence. But the album holds together quite well, with or without the uniform distortion.
Truth be told, Stephin Merritt’s work feels a little out of place in 2008, as it doesn’t feature all the bells and whistles of present-day indie. But, surprisingly enough, that’s really refreshing. It’s just music, and honesty, and a damn-bad hangover. And Merritt puts the reason for the hangover, and the haze of the album, in perfect focus with the chorus of “Too Drunk to Dream”: “I’ve got to get too drunk to dream / cuz dreaming only gets me blue / I’ve got to get too drunk to dream / because I only dream of you / I got to get too pissed to miss you / or I’ll never get to sleep / I’ve got to drink wine not to pine for you / and god knows that ain’t cheap.” And so it goes.
More about The Magnetic Fields: Official Website or MySpace
To download this album via Daily Dose, click here.
Albums of Note: The Last 2007 Music Best-Of, I Promise
Burial – Untrue
Propelled by striking percussion and haunting vocal samples, Untrue wraps its listener in mystery and the feeling that something very wrong is going on nearby, something very passionate and very disturbing. Repetitive but diverse, this slow-working incantation almost wants to be dance hall-ready dubstep, but escapes that label by featuring enough interlocking rhythms and ambient moments to make dancing difficult. But, more than anything, the album is just too damn emotionally-intense for the club.
Drowning absolutely everything in reverb, Untrue feels like music from the afterlife, transported directly to you for the purpose of promoting unease. But the mystery of Burial extends far beyond its lost-in-the-abandoned-factory eeriness—no one knows who Burial is. And this anonymity and distance is perfect for this album, one that never ceases to be both pleading and forlorn, lovely and despairing.
September Collective – All the Birds Were Anarchists
At times almost unconscionably beautiful, the piano-driven All the Birds Were Anarchists is what happens when laptops go right—using naturally constructed sonics and an air of the haphazard, the humanness behind the album is never lost. This first release by September Collective—a side project of the more well-known Barbara Morgenstern—serves as a soothing backdrop to everything else’s endless racket, and is a piece of work that upon close inspection exceeds its delicate initial impression. And although this may be an album that won’t immediately lift you from your seat in a fit of applause, its complicated tapestry of subtleties is sure to grow on you.
Andrew Bird – Armchair Apochrypha
Few in indie music today are so obviously intelligent as the Chicago-based Andrew Bird, a man whose meticulously-crafted music transmits a genuine air of intellect. Far from willing to rest on the laurels of his previous album, he’s taken this impression to a new level with the sneaky Armchair Apocrypha, an album that at first may seem too clean, but eventually grabs you by the throat and holds on until it’s too late. And that, when it comes to incredibly well-structured and intricate songs with spot-on lyricism, is a good thing.
With a slew of quotables (“thank god it’s fatal,” “time’s a crooked boat,” etc.) and a distinct awareness of the album structure as a whole, Armchair Apocrypha is an at-times-poppy and at-times-heartbreaking journey of an album. Using practically equal parts violin, piano, and guitar to drive the songs, Bird has expanded the palette of his previous albums, while intensifying the seriousness and complexity of his songs. And, because of this, he has created a work worthy of a good fifty or sixty straight-through listens. At least.
Do Make Say Think – You, You’re a History in Rust
Do Make Say Think have carved themselves a fine little niche in the post-rock world, gathering fans over the years with jazz-and-rock-influenced instrumental opuses. And You, You’re a History in Rust maintains this momentum and develops it with a not-to-be-underestimated sense of balance and consistency. Pretty much, if you want some instrumental music you can rock out to—and something a little more varied than Explosions in the Sky— this is your place to go.
Built around the relentlessly intense “The Universe!”—a song which blends cascading guitars with a two-drummer setup to fill a room with noise, and offer a thrashing counterpoint to the slow-burners of the rest of the album—You, You’re a History in Rust is the work of very skilled musicians doing what they do. And while they cheat on one song by using vocals (how dare they!), this is still an album you should reach for when you want to get the blood pumping, but not the mind tripping over words.
Panda Bear – Person Pitch
When it comes to describing Person Pitch, you may use words like “delirious” or “psychotic” or “eastern,” or phrases like “techno blender” or “synthetic eeriness.” Hell, you may even say it’s “like a post-enlightenment Brian Wilson in a playground of crayola-colors, loops, and high-grade ecstasy.” But really, when it comes to Panda Bear’s statement album—one that ensures he’ll never again be simply an Animal Collective side project—none of those flailing attempts at description seem to grasp what’s going on.
Person Pitch is one of those albums where an entire article could be written about each track, from the bouncy “Comfy in Nautica,” to the devastating thirteeen minute shock of “Bros” (perhaps the most captivating—and seizure-inducing—song of the year), all the way through to its subtle tail end. Said simply, Person Pitch just plain kicks its listener in the gut. And while the mystery of the album was perhaps enhanced by Panda’s near-refusal to tour in support of it, that’s just fine by me—when I can remember thinking way back in March, “There’s no way in hell this isn’t going to be one of the top five albums of the year,” that’s a pretty good sign something strangely brilliant is happening.
Sunset Rubdown – Random Spirit Lover
And this is quite possibly the best album of the year, as well as one of the most shockingly overlooked. You can read about it here.
* * *
And here’s a list of some other albums of 2007 it would be wrong not to mention:
MGMT‘s Oracular Spectacular
Caribou‘s Andorra
Animal Collective‘s Strawberry Jam
Of Montreal‘s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer
Kanye West‘s Graduation
Deerhoof‘s Friend Opportunity
The National‘s Boxer
Sage Francis‘ Human the Death Dance
Family Dynamics: The Fallout of Suburbanization
Note: This is part three of a many-parted series discussing practical issues revolving around the family, such as the effects of suburbanization and corporatization on family happiness, divorce as a social phenomenon, the frailties of inner-city households, and the role of the father. No sources will be cited, but they do exist, somewhere. The ideas and thoughts proposed in this series are rhetorical and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of Tier 3.
Suburbanization, characterized by “white flight,” brought the family out of the cramped confines and distasteful diversity of the city and into the endless optimism of tract housing, not to mention the joys of grass-mowing and shrub-clipping. The initial influx of people to the newly sprawling suburbs was indeed founded in a sort of boundless optimism—the opportunity to have private space under the premise of family wholeness, moral righteousness, and mutual satisfaction. Yet while these ideals fed the burgeoning bridge between city life and rural life, the promise of family unity soon became no more valid than a promise made by a politician: sounds good on paper, and turns the heads of the populous, but ultimately fails to live up to its own rhetoric. Instead of offering the family a chance to bond—as the advent of architectural adjustments favoring the family, such as the aptly named “family room,” would suggest—the prideful seclusion of suburban life instead led to a realization of the impossibilities of equal happiness among members of a family unit. The family unit, despite the obvious commonalities among its members, is comprised of people of different ages, aims, and agendas—to expect these people to provide, in relative isolation, all of an individual’s emotional necessities is not only uninformed but flatly absurd. Truly, rather than embracing the responsibility for family members’ well-being, the family members became suffocated under the unreasonable expectations and were driven from each other, not only emotionally but spatially within the home. 
Whereas in the pre-suburban days the home was divided into various purpose-specific rooms, thus thrusting upon family members shared space whether they liked it or not, the suburban lifestyle unexpectedly saw the family splinter in whatever way possible, each member retreating to his or her own room and letting the door shut not-so-silently in its wake.
And so hope died. The man’s sphere and the women’s sphere became further separated and the increasingly longer commute to and from work made leisure time all the more sparse. The side effects of this are many, including additional estrangement from the family and the high pressure placed on “quality time,” which saw parents attempt to make up for a lack of presence by relying on the inconsistent binge relationship. These attempts met with mixed results, but often found the cynical teenager unimpressed and annoyed by the thought. Ultimately, the privacy offered by the expansive lawn and even the picket fence were accepted gratefully, albeit gravely, in exchange for community; it seems, almost, that the family values so effusively espoused by mid-century residential developers were always more in communion with community than with isolation of the family itself, and the latter was therefore overlooked as a factor. And thus, the rise in divorce and the separation of child from parent and parent from extended family.
Up next in Family Dynamics: The Television Revolution
A Little Bit of Perspective: Putting Earth in its Place
File courtesy of http://i21.tinypic.com/wjyvqw.gif; thanks to AG for spotting it
Best of the Best: Music Videos of 2007, pt. 3
Menomena’s “Evil Bee” may be the most rewatchable music video of the year, as its visual and thematic appeal are on par with each other, and the positivity of its middle provides ample setup for the inevitability of its conclusion. Although its “trapped in life/work” message isn’t terribly new, and even some of its tropes feel familiar, the artistic eye-candy of this video make it a fascinating watch.
And this might just be the worst music video of the year, and that’s why it’s so good. The incomparable Snoop Dogg and his “Sensual Seduction” lampoons the most embarrassing of 1980’s music video techniques to craft a work so wrought with irony that it’s hardly watchable. But at the same time, you have to appreciate his sense of humor, and his willingness to go all the way with something so ridiculous.
Interviews: Battles‘ John Stanier. or Fiery Furnaces‘ Matthew Friedberger.
Album Reviews: Random Spirit Lover by Sunset Rubdown. or Night Falls Over Kortedala by Jens Lekman. or Shelter from the Ash by Six Organs of Admittance. or Love Is Simple by Akron/Family. or Liars by Liars. or Widow City by Fiery Furnaces. or In the Vines by Castanets.
Concert Reviews: Joanna Newsom. or Of Montreal. or Cat Power. or Final Fantasy. or Explosions in the Sky. or MGMT. or Ocote Soul Sound.
The Wednesday Poem: The City
* * *
Touch faces like the blind touch faces.
Say to everyone you’re very beautiful
because you know no better.
Forget that mothers won’t admit
everyone considers the end from time to time.
Don’t wonder what it would feel like.
And don’t worry:
at too-soon passing, most people fail.
So look up, sunflower,
before your neck is broken by expectation—
skyscraper faces mirror automobiles
as they float by,
their steel swimming like barracudas
just below the water’s surface.
Do you see how their scales shimmer,
how their teeth are bared?
———————————————————————————
[this poem originally appeared in the Spring 2005(!) issue of Pebble Lake Review.]
Words on a Word: The Problematic “God”
Could it be the most important word? The most misrepresented? Do dictionary definitions necessarily imply a personable or human-like God? Something tied to mythology or free of story-telling? What does the Random House Unabridged Dictionary have to say?
God – noun, interjection
verb: god·ded, god·ding
[Origin: before 900; Middle English, Old English; c. D “god”, G “Gott”, ON “goth”, Goth “guth”]
–noun
1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
2. the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute: the God of Islam.
3. (lowercase) one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs.
4. (often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the god of mercy.
5. Christian Science. the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle.
6. (lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol.
7. (lowercase) any deified person or object.
Or how about these noun definitions, from The American Heritage Dictionary?:
1. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
2. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
–verb (used with object)
1. (lowercase
) to regard or treat as a god; deify; idolize.
–interjection
1. (used to express disappointment, disbelief, weariness, frustration, annoyance, or the like): God, do we have to listen to this nonsense?
First record of “Godawful” is from 1878; “Godspeed” is from c.1470; “God-fearing” is attested from 1835; “God bless you” after someone sneezes is credited to St. Gregory the Great, but the pagan Romans and Greeks had similar customs.
Not surprisingly, the dictionary study is inconclusive and partisan towards a monotheistic creator-based interpretation. And there’s little doubt that this is the most prevalent view of God in America, therefore making that definition valid. But this “definitive” approach is indeed primarily Western, what with the puppeteer and deterministic connotations of the word “ruler.” Also, referring to”God” as a “Being” implies something quantifiable. But of course, all of this can be argued on any number of semantic and philosophical levels. Like, God, do we have to listen to this nonsense?
Information from various original sources compiled here. William Blake, who last week turned 250, is responsible for the image of Urizen, who represented the creator in Blake’s own sprawling cosmology.
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